Can Diabetics Eat Honey? The Research Will Surprise You.

We’re all aware that type 2 diabetes is a global health problem. Unfortunately between 1980 and 2010, the rate of men diagnosed sky-rocketed by 177%. Treatment largely relies on improving the diet, particularly cutting out added sugars or replacing them with healthier alternatives. One of the most popular alternatives is honey, but can diabetics eat it? This article weighs the pros and cons of nature’s sweetener.

◊♦◊

Honey is an all-natural food nicknamed Nature’s Sweetener. Humans have likely been eating it for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years. And not only for its sweet flavour, but for its medicinal properties too. Sounds like something we should be eating more of right? Yet when you break it right down, honey is essentially sugar. We know that a high sugar diet is bad for you, which is why many consider honey unhealthy.

So is honey good for us or not? Perhaps more importantly… Can diabetics eat honey?

Watch and listen to the author present the content of this article in a video presentation.

◊♦◊

Honey vs Sugar: How does it compare?

Honey is made in the beehive from flower nectar. The process is a collective effort that requires honey bees to consume, digest and regurgitate nectar repeatedly. For this reason, the nutritional properties of honey depend on the nectar available around the hive.

It’s hard to argue the winner here. You can see honey contains water and many trace vitamins and minerals that sugar doesn’t. That’s why honey is only 82% sugar by weight, while sugar is 99.9%… And that’s also why honey contains fewer calories than sugar.

Honey is also reported to contain at nearly 200 different substances, especially antioxidants. Antioxidants are thought to protect against many forms of disease (2).

Honey vs Sugar: Effects on blood sugar and insulin

The impact of honey consumption on blood sugar levels tends to be slightly better than regular sugar.

One small experimental study on healthy subjects found that although 75g of honey did raise blood sugar and insulin levels in the first two hours, 75g of pure glucose raised them both significantly more (3).

Similarly in type 2 diabetic subjects, honey also had a much smaller impact on blood sugar levels than pure glucose.

The same researchers also looked at how honey compares with sucrose (regular table sugar), which is more applicable to real life diets. Sucrose is made up of glucose + fructose, just like honey.

The initial blood sugar spike measured at 30 minutes was greater from honey than from glucose. However, blood sugar levels in the honey group then dropped lower than sucrose, and remained lower for the next two hours (3).

Honey was also seen to cause a greater rise in insulin than from sucrose. Given that insulin removes sugar out of the blood, this may explain why blood sugar levels dropped lower in the honey group from 60 minutes onwards.

For type 1 diabetics, the impact of honey on blood sugar levels was also far less than pure glucose or regular table sugar (4).

◊♦◊

Other studies looking at when diabetics eat honey

Several studies have looked at the addition of honey to the diet, rather than just as a replacement for sugar.

Focusing on type 1 diabetics, a 12-week study found that additional honey improved short-term blood sugar levels as well as lipid profile (like cholesterol) and total fat mass (5).

This would help explain why honey could be beneficial alongside anti-diabetic medications.

Dark honey contains antioxidants: Two human studies showed that dark, buckwheat honey is a strong source of antioxidants (8, 9). Antioxidants may help protect against many lifestyle diseases.

Improves cholesterol and markers of disease: Several human studies have found that frequent honey consumption reduces high total cholesterol and LDL, improves HDL, and lowers inflammatory markers of disease (3, 6).

Topical Healing: Not a metabolic benefit, but honey appears to display medicinal properties when applied to the skin. It has been shown to kill bacteria and increase wound healing speed (10, 11).

Honey is also linked to a host of other health benefits, ranging from gut health to the liver (12).

So can diabetics eat honey?

Nutrition advice is very rarely black and white… honey is no exception. If you are overweight with poorly managed diabetes, there are foods you should eat, but honey is not one of them.

Even though there is promising research using honey to improve diabetes management, results are inconsistent. It is actually in your best interest to cut out added sugar from your diet and go low-carb.

If you have well-managed diabetes, are not overweight and are otherwise healthy, then honey as a replacement for sugar is likely beneficial.

I would certainly not go as far as to say additional honey is good for diabetes though; the evidence is not that solid. After all, honey is sugar, which is a root cause of the problem in the first place.

If you’re healthy, active and don’t need to lose weight, then honey seems safe to enjoy. It is more nutritious than regular sugar (dark honey especially), so consider swapping them where possible.

Just remember that while eating honey is better than sugar, eating neither is best.

◊♦◊

Summary:

Honey is not pure sugar. It also contains water and small amounts of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, which vary depending on the type of honey.

Honey spikes blood sugar levels immediately after consumption. However, after 60 minutes levels drop back down considerably quicker than they do after consuming regular sugar. This appears to hold true for healthy individuals and diabetics.

Human studies have found mixed results when adding honey to the diet of type 1 and type 2 diabetics. Including animal studies, additional honey appears neutral at worst and beneficial at best.

Honey is linked to a range of health benefits, including improved cholesterol and inflammatory markers.

About Joe Leech

Joe is a Clinical Dietitian from Sydney, with a Master's degree in nutrition and dietetics. He believes that conventional medicine and natural medicine do not have to be mutually exclusive, and draws from the best of both areas when discussing nutrition science or giving dietary advice to treat conditions.